Sensoring Pornography On The Internet

9 Pages 2249 Words

rnography on the Internet, and are seeking some sort of censorship to protect their children. “Others, however, including some leading African Americans are worried that any attempt by the government to censor the Internet could end up banning views not popular with mainstream white America” (Lloyd 39). Both sides of the problem have justification to be worried.
On the Internet, more and more websites are committed to broadcasting pornography. “Some people roam the networks collecting massive amounts of what is more sophisticated called erotica. Most of it, frankly, is smut” (Van der Leun 36-37). These websites are open to anyone who has a modem, a phone line, and who is connected to the Internet through a service such as American Online (AOL). “Though one never finds mention of it in the corporate literature, AOL owes much of its early success to middle-aged men and teenage boys spending endless hours in sex chat rooms” (Luenfeld 26-27).
The American government has created a moral panic with cyber porn. “Amoral panic is characterized by a wave of public concern, anxiety, and fever about something, usually perceived as a threat to society” (Wilkins 4-7). Parents are worried about their kids viewing porn and don’t want them to see these images. This panic was sparked by the July 3, 1995; Time article was based on a study done by an undergraduate at Georgetown University. It was published in Marty Rimm’s Georgetown University Law Journal paper, “Marketing Pornography on the Information Superhighway.” “Although published, the article had not received peer review and was based on a undergraduate research project concerning descriptions of images on adult bulletin board systems in the United States” (Wilkins 57). The New York Times reported on July 24, 1995 Rimm was being investigated by his university, Carnegie Mellon, for unethical research and would not be giving testimony to a senate hearing on...